Back in the day credit wasn’t something most people talked about or took advantage of. Certainly in my household credit wasn’t used at all. Oh, I’m sure my parents used credit to secure their mortgage, but that was it. Everything else was “cash on the barrel” head and my father carried around enough cash to handle any barrel head that came his way. Who knew then that credit would become so all powerful?
But while our personal credit was becoming so important, it was also becoming more vulnerable to attack and misuse. That’s why credit report monitoring has become such an essential safeguard against identity theft and other attacks. Here are 3 credit report monitoring services that do the job well.
The best credit report monitoring services will watch for and report any and all changes or inquiries made to your credit report. Changes like modifications to your address, new credit or bank accounts opened up in your name, and more. When something does change you receive an alert by phone, email, or even text, telling you so. That credit alert usually comes within 24 hours of the change itself giving you the ability to check it out yourself and react to it quickly. You can check out your credit report and notify your bank or lenders if the change was fraudulent. You can even freeze your credit temporarily and stop the potential fraud cold.
Today, credit is used everywhere. Not only do people still use it to buy the big-ticket items in life like homes and cars but they use it for lots of smaller purchases too – like gasoline, groceries, and even their morning coffee. Landlords use credit to make renting decisions. And prospective employers use credit to determine if a job applicant will be a good hire or not. So today, more than at any other time in our history, our credit scores and credit reports play a significant role in our lives.
But identity theft is one of the fast-track white collar crimes in the world today and it almost by definition directly targets the credit and assets of its victims. There are well over 10 million identity theft victims a year and credit card companies alone spend more than 5 billion dollars each year dealing with the losses on just the credit card side of things. Our credit is under attack and we have to take precautions to safeguard it. That’s why credit monitoring is a must.
To be safe, true credit monitoring should be at least on a monthly basis because when our credit is stolen or even just reported incorrectly, it can affect us very quickly. But going a step further can protect you even more. That means engaging a credit report monitoring service; preferably one that provides 3 bureau credit report monitoring.
